North Jersey firefighters help hard-hit colleagues at Shore

As superstorm Sandy lashed the New Jersey coast, John Sorrano, like many of his fellow officers, worked to evacuate residents in Keansburg, a small town on the Raritan Bay. In the days after, he worked one 12-hour shift after another, protecting damaged properties for homeowners who could not return.

That left the patrolman no time to help his grandmother, whose home on Ramsey Avenue, like many in Keansburg, was flooded: more than a foot of water overcame the first floor.

Enter firefighters from the Paterson Fire Department, who started lending a hand last week to first responders and their relatives who haven’t yet been able to clean out their homes. Their work has branched out to regular residents in need as well. The volunteer help continued a trend of North Jersey first responders heading to the Shore to help out in the hardest-hit areas. A convoy of five firetrucks carrying 28 firefighters from seven Pascack Valley towns helped in Toms River earlier this month.

About two-thirds of the homes in Keansburg had some type of water damage, said Brian Pigott, former chief of the Keansburg Fire Department. Not a street in the borough could be found Monday without mounds of curbside debris, some piled as high as the first floor of the homes. Windows of homes were thrown open to air out interiors containing moldy odors while the periodic sounds of chain saws hummed throughout the town.

The efforts of the North Jersey firefighters helped to mitigate some of the devastation.

“This is absolutely unbelievable,” said Soranno, who stopped by his grandmother’s house while on duty Monday to check out the progress. “It brings a tear to my eye. It’s just great to see there are still people out there willing to help and give back to a community they don’t even know.”

Paterson Battalion Chief John Bradle had no personal connection to Keansburg other than, in the days after Sandy struck, delivering supplies from his hometown of Belmar, which received an overabundance of donations.

As he did so, he realized that the first responders in Keansburg, a one-square mile town of 11,000, were so busy performing their jobs that they had no time to tend to their own homes or emergency buildings damaged by the Oct. 29 storm.

So he put out the call to firefighters at the department to help the borough. And many responded, using their days off or taking days off from second jobs to help families in the Bayshore region start to mend.

Last week, firefighters spent a day at the New Point Comfort Fire Company firehouse on Carr Road and removed water-damaged walls and carpets from the kitchen and other rooms. Next week, the Paterson crews plan to visit Seaside Heights and Seaside Park, said Bradle.

Pigott said the department was grateful for Paterson’s help, especially since many of the Keansburg volunteer firefighters had experienced some kind of storm-related loss and were trying to balance time at the firehouse with their own recovery.

In the days after Sandy hit, other firefighters from across North Jersey, including volunteers from Emerson, Ramsey, River Vale, Washington Township, Westwood, Woodcliff Lake and Upper Saddle River descended on the Shore to help with more traditional first-responder duties: going house to house to check on residents, helping the injured and evacuating those who rode out the storm but whose homes were left uninhabitable.

Now, firefighters continue to help out, working with those who need to rebuild.

On Monday, about 20 volunteers from Paterson made the 45-mile trek to clear out three homes in Keansburg as well as a firehouse meeting room. As the day progressed, a mountain of debris containing appliances, insulation, floor boards, dry wall and a bathtub grew outside the Ramsey Avenue home owned by Soranno’s grandmother, Barbara Festing.

The firefighters cleared the first floor of water-logged furniture and removed the paneling and carpeting. Then the floor boards came up.

“As a firefighter, as an EMT and as a medical transport, there’s a certain personal pleasure helping someone else,” said Steven Burns, a Paterson firefighter.

His wife, Debbie, an accountant who is on vacation this week, heard about his plans and wanted to join him.

“This is really a sad thing and I wanted to do something to help others,” she said. “I do believe it’s helping someone else get things moving a little quicker for them.”

Soranno said his grandmother does not have much money and is relying on flood insurance to cover the damage her home sustained from floodwaters.

“I couldn’t find the manpower or a crew to do this,” he said. “It would take weeks for me to do this.”

The department members also helped replace the floor of Vinnie and Sandy Walters’ front porch on Raritan Avenue.

“Words can’t express what I can say about them,” Sandy Walters said. “Maybe it’ll be a new beginning.”

She said she told the firefighters that she’s always reading about Paterson being flooded.

“Now it’s the other way around,” she said.

Bradle said he’ll continue to organize cleanups for as long as first responders need help.

“I happen to be very lucky,” he said, referring to his undamaged Belmar home. “Some people weren’t lucky, so this is what we can offer. It needs to be done.”